This invention relates to an apparatus for crushing motor vehicle oil filters and simultaneously recovering residual or waste oil from the filters.
The Environmental Protection Agency of the United States has promulgated rules declaring that waste oil constitutes a hazardous material. As such, waste oil must be carefully collected and then recycled or disposed of in accord with stringent disposal procedures. Heretofore, a significant source of waste oil has been the residual oil retained in used motor vehicle oil filters. Thus, appropriate techniques are required to recover the waste oil from such filters for purposes of recycling, proper disposal or other treatment. It is estimated that approximately half of the oil in such filters can be recovered by simply draining the filter after it is removed from the motor vehicle. The remaining oil in the filter cannot normally be recovered by draining and thus other techniques must be used.
It has been suggested that such additional techniques include the crushing of the filter and the collection of the oil during the crushing operation will result in the recovery of an additional 38% of the oil originally contained in the filter. The remaining amount (12%) does not appear to be recoverable.
In any event, the recovery of a significant amount of used motor vehicle oil can be effected by crushing of the filters. Recently various proposed structures for the crushing of oil filters and recovery of the oil released during the crushing operation have appeared in the marketplace. Typically, such oil filter crusher apparatus are comprised of a platform or anvil with a piston positioned over the anvil. A hydraulic operated piston is then positioned to descend onto the filter, crushing the filter and thereby extracting significant amounts of residual oil retained in the filter. The use of such crushing apparatus has been greeted with acceptance especially among those businesses responsible for changing the oil in motor vehicle engines. There has remained a need, however, for an improved oil filter crushing apparatus which is compact, efficient, durable, safe to operate and less costly.